SPP 1569:  Generation of Multifunctional Inorganic Materials by Molecular Bionics

• Subject Area: Materials Science and Engineering
• Term: from 2012 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 172543101

Inorganic functional materials have tremendous impact on key technologies relevant for the further development of future fields like information technology or energy generation and storage. In this connection complex-structured multifunctional inorganic materials as well as their hybrids with organic components play a main role. The generation of such materials with defined structure and stoichiometry via conventional processing is limited, since such processes require increased temperatures and/or pressures as well as large technological efforts. Accordingly, there are world-wide research activities to overcome such limitations and to search for new procedures, which allow the manufacturing of new materials at ambient condition with reduced processing efforts. Living nature provides impressive evolution-optimised processes, which lead to complex-structured multifunctional inorganic solids. Their formation occurs via biomineralisation in aqueous environments at ambient conditions and is genetically determined. During these processes biopolymeric templates that control the mineralisation and the structure formation of the inorganic components play a main role. These processes also involve molecular self-assembly and finally yield composites made of non-metallic inorganic solids like calcium phosphate or carbonate and bioorganic components. Such inorganic/bioorganic hybrids exhibit unique multifunctional features and in particular, their performance and property spectrum is further tuned and expanded by the incorporation of the bioorganic fraction. Even though many of the technically relevant materials are not generated by the processes developed by biological evolution, the consideration of biomineralisation principles provides promising perspectives for the generation of inorganic functional materials via the interaction between bioorganic and inorganic components. The Priority Programme’s main scientific objective is to apply the principles of biomineralisation to the generation of complex-structured multifunctional inorganic materials as well as of their hybrids with bioorganic portions. In order to achieve this goal the Priority Programme addresses research work on (1) the in vitro and in vivo generation of such materials directed by biomolecule-based templates with a main focus on 2D and 3D structures, (2) the characterisation of the formation mechanisms as well as of the structure of the materials, (3) the investigation and design of the physical and chemical properties of the materials.Furthermore, these experimental studies are accompanied by computational modelling of the formation, structure and properties of the materials.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes

Projects

• Bacterial magnetosomes: Molecular modelling of magnetite biomineralization and generation of nano-magnetic hybrid materials (Applicant Schüler, Dirk )
• Bio-inorganic hybrid membranes with nanoporosity control by genetically engineered viral seal rings (Applicants Gliemann, Hartmut ;  Marti, Othmar ;  Wege, Christina )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Bill, Joachim )
• Diatom Nanobiotechnology: Design Principles for Enhancing the Catalytic Activities of Enzymes and Metal Nanoparticles immobilized on Diatom Biosilica (Applicants Brunner, Eike ;  Kröger, Nils )
• Fabrication of multishaped magnetic structures via a knowledge-based biomimetic approach supported by atomistic modeling - Phase 3 (Applicants Colombi Ciacchi, Lucio ;  Maas, Michael )
• Generation and design of bifunctional bacteriophages and peptides: integrating organics and inorganics into multifunctional materials (Applicant Hauer, Bernhard )
• Generation of composites from borides with tuneable electrical conductivities using peptides optimized by genetic engineering; characterization of the bio-solid interactions by modelling and AFM (Applicants Albert, Barbara ;  Berger, Robert ;  Stark, Robert ;  van der Vegt, Nico )
• Genetically controlled self-assembly of inorganic-bioorganic hybrid structures: From sponge genes to layered functional materials (Applicant Tremel, Wolfgang )
• Genetically controlled self-assembly of inorganic-bioorganic hybrid structures: From sponge genes to layered functional materials (Applicant Wiens, Matthias P. )
• Genetically optimized M13 phages as functionalized bio-templates for the generation of bio/inorganic nanostructured materials (Applicants van Aken, Peter A. ;  Bill, Joachim ;  Hauer, Bernhard ;  Schimmel, Thomas )
• Genetically optimized Tobacco mosaic viruses as scaffold for the in vitro generation of semiconductor bio/metal-oxide nanostructured architectures (Applicants Bill, Joachim ;  Eiben, Sabine ;  Schneider, Jörg J. )
• High-resolution low-voltage TEM for imaging the process of mineralization at the TMV/inorganic interface: Towards understanding the mechanical properties of bio/inorganic multilayer systems (Applicants Bill, Joachim ;  Kaiser, Ute ;  Wege, Christina )
• Multifunctional Layered Magnetite Composites (Applicants Cölfen, Helmut ;  Faivre, Damien ;  Pipich, Vitaliy ;  Zahn, Dirk )
• SpiderMAEN: Recombinant Spider Silk-based Hybrid Materials for Advanced Energy Technology (Applicants Scheibel, Thomas ;  Taubert, Andreas )
• Tailoring cementitious materials with genetically, engineered microbial exopolysaccharides, a biologically inspired approach towards high-performance construction materials (Applicants Plank, Johann ;  Sieber, Volker )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Joachim Bill